The World in Black and White
by Lizzyk121
Summary: Nearly a year after Augustus dies Isaac gets some news that changed his life forever and all he wants to do is tell his now best friend Hazel about it. This is just my version of the ending that could have happened. I hope you like it. I'm rubbish at summaries but better at stories so please give it a try and tell me what you think.
1. Isaac 1

**Isaac**

If you are a person who suffered at the hands of cancer the chances are that when your doctor calls you into his office your blood will run cold. This is at least true for people like me who have the kind of cancer that seems to like taking up residence in my DNA.

I know that my mom is panicking too, but on true for she isn't mentioning it. She just took my brother to a friend's house, and packed me up into the car. When my second eye had been removed a year ago she has to strap me in like a child after I had tried and failed five times. She was very gentle doing it as she has been when I was growing up, telling me that it would take time to adjust.

Now, nearly a year later I have adjusted, at least enough to function mostly on my own. Mom still needs to help me get from place to place, and we are still deciding what I am going to do about that. One of the weird stick things or a dog, which as luck would have it I am allergic to. When I asked Hazel about this she told me that I should just get a horse to lead me around.

She offered to come with me to this appointment, but I wouldn't let her. I'd rather not have my best friend watch me break down into pieces yet again. Not when she already has it so much worse than me. She is one of the truly brave cancer survivors that I have ever met. Not for fighting, anyone can fight but for keeping optimistic through everything she has been for. Refusing comfort or help from anyone who isn't already emotionally invested. I am glad that that small group of people now includes me.

I am lost in memories of Hazel, Augustus and even Monica when my mom pulls up outside the hospital. We both walk in bursts of speed. Not wanting to get there and then speeding up when we realise we just want to get this over with. I used to kid myself that there would be good news at the end of this walk, but after losing both of my eyes to cancer I don't think that anymore.

We are ten minutes early, and we sit on the stupidly uncomfortable plastic chairs outside Dr Abel's office. I fiddle with the hem of my top, worrying it within my fingers. Maybe the cancer that used to affect just my eyes started to spread before they removed my eyes. Maybe they just missed it on the scan. I had thought I was one of the lucky ones, well as lucky as you can when you've been blinded by the whole thing. Definitely lucky compared to Hazel, who has lost more than I can imagine losing to this disease; a boyfriend, her teenage years and a normal school life.

'Isaac Lewis,' The Doctors voice made me rigid, and it took a while for me to realise that I had to move now. I let my mum help me up and lead me to the office.

When we were both sat down I braced myself to be told bad news. As a result what he actually said caught me off guard.

'How are you Isaac?' he asked, which caught be off guard. Isn't that what he is supposed to be telling me? Surely he called me in to discuss the results from my last scan.

'Fine I guess,' I say warily.

'How are you coping?' I nearly sigh, and if Hazel were here I would have. This is typical of the questions I am asked all the time by well-meaning but insincere idiots. They think they are being subtle but I know what they are really asking. Are you cool with being blind now? Frankly no I'm not, but I answer the question he's asked instead of the one he's implied.

'Well I think. My mom helps me out a lot and so do my friends.'

I imagine him nodding at my answer. It's something I've started to do a lot recently. Imagining the visual reactions have to what I say. He doesn't say anything for a while, and I hear him sort through papers and my mom's soft anxious breaths beside me.

'As you know Isaac you have a very rare blood type which means that certain things are difficult to do in terms of care.' I just grunt in response, 'That is why we haven't discussed this particular option before. We didn't want to create false hope where there might not be any.'

'What are you talking about?' My mother asks, obviously getting impatient with all the secrecy and evasion.

'Mrs Lewis recently we have found an organ donor with the same blood type as your son. This means that we can give your son, in laymen's terms, an eye transplant.'

He is silent then, giving us a moment to absorb the life changing news he has just delivered.

'Could they get cancer too?' I ask in a shaky voice. The only thoughts running around my head are that I will be able to see that picture Augustus made Hazel take, and how I wish she had been in the picture and then that Gus was wrong about robot eyes so no seeing through girls tops for me.

'It is a risk,' he says, 'but highly unlikely. On one hand you could have a relapse, but that could happen regardless of whether we do the transplant or not. On the other hand this will involve more surgery and that in itself holds its own risks. It would be perfectly understandable if you didn't want to go through this again.'

'I want to do it.' I blurt out. I'd have to be an idiot to turn this down. I want to see faces again; my mother, my brother, Hazel. I almost think Monica but the more I do the more I think of how she didn't even all after my whole world fell apart. How she lied when she said always. It's been a long time, and the anger I used to feel about it is gone. She isn't worth my anger, especially not this long after the event.

'Isaac honey, are you sure.' My mum puts a hand on my shoulder and I turn my head to the approximate direction of her voice and nod.

'I'll give you a few days to think on it,' The doctor says anyway,' I need to be sure that it's a well thought out decision before you sign anything.'

The rest of the meeting goes by quickly. He gives my mom leaflets and tells me websites on which I can find more information on what I could expect from a procedure like this, even talking me through what will happen in the surgery. I don't understand half of what he says. I am giddy. I thought I would be blind for the rest of my life. It feels like a reprieve and really that is what it is.

My mom tries to talk to me on the way home. I don't understand why she has so many reservations about this. I would have thought she'd jump at the chance not to have to lead me everywhere.

'Why are you against this?' I ask her finally, interrupting something about the risks, and thinking through my options. She stops and sighs deeply, as though the weight of the world is on her shoulders.

'I don't want to go through it again,' she says sadly, 'I don't want you to go through this only to get sick again at the end of it and … Isaac I don't want to take the chance of losing you again.

Of course she doesn't. I'm an idiot not to have thought of it before.

'Mom,' I say gently, 'there's still a chance it could come back. I could get sick again and they'd have to do something else to treat me. I just want to see again, if only for a little while.'

She sighs again, but this time it's more resigned.

'I'm behind you no matter what. We all are.' I smile and say what I have said to her so many times over the last few awful years.

'I love you mom,'

'I love you too. Do you want to go to see Hazel?'

'Of course.' I cannot wait to tell her. She will be happy for me I know it. There is a chance she will be asleep. What with still having cancer the girl sleeps at strange times.

It doesn't take long to get to her house. My mother helps me out f the car and together we walk to the doors. I hear the doorbell ring as she presses it. Then I hear is again. Apparently no one is home. Probably Hazel's mom has remembered an occasion to celebrate. She very rarely gets any forewarning before she is pulled into a celebration.

'Do you want to wait?' my mom asks and I shake my head.

'No. I'll just call her later.

* * *

**There are not nearly enough of there stories, at least I don't think so anyway.**

**I hope you'll enjoy it. The next chapter will be from Hazel's POV**

**Please review it, I'd love to know what you think.**


	2. Hazel 1

**Hazel**

I'm in front of the television and America's Next Top Model is playing, but I'm not really watching it. I'm worrying, and trying not to worry because I know that the mere fact that I am worrying will not affect the outcome of his meeting.

I know what most meetings with doctors mean after a long remission and I hope that he is in the small percentage of people who this isn't the case for. When he first told me last week that he had to go back into see his doctor everything inside me went cold.

Ever since Gus officially introduced us in Jesus' literal heart Isaac and I have been getting gradually closer. Now he's my best friend, not only because he knew Augustus so well but also because he understands what it's like to be the 'delicate flower.'

Mom connected me to the BiPAP and is cooking dinner now. I've been tired today, a side effect of cancer, so most of my day has been spent like this. Drifting in an out of sleep to worry and pretend to watch my TV shows and then sleeping again. When I was first diagnosed a boy in my class told me that he would feel terrible if he spent a day like this. I didn't bother to explain to him that sleeping all day is almost the most productive thing a kid with cancer can do. As my mom and my doctors always remind me 'Sleep fights Cancer.'

I go to shift my position but then when I move I feel an intense pain shoot through me. I gasp, or as close as I can with the BiPAP attached.

'Mom,' I wheeze. It's not loud, but it's as loud as I can make it and she is there in an instant.

When she comes running in she doesn't say anything, just runs straight to me as I open my mouth in a silent scream. Oh this would definitely mark high on the pain scale. My chest feels as though it is about to explode, and soon I can't tell where it's coming from anymore. It is all encompassing and for the first time when I think that when the pain gets too bad the body shuts down I actually pass out.

I drift in and out of consciousness as time passes, but I am an observer, unable to partake in the drama unfolding around me.

The first time Mom is cradling my head in her lap, and tears fall onto my face as I hear her ring first for an ambulance, saying she can't move me and the BiPAP on her own, and then my dad to tell him to meet us at the hospital.

Then I am being hauled off of the ambulance, Mom is beside me holding my hand, telling me it's going to be fine and that dad will be here soon. It's funny I think. Isaac and I are both in hospital today. I hope his is a nice reason than mine.

I wake up again to the sound of my dads broken voice.

'Do they know anything yet.' He chokes out the words so they are only just intelligible. I don't hear mom speak, so I imagine she's nodded. I can't open my eyes, and this annoys me. Then again I am exhausted. I don't know what is going on with me but I can guess. My miracle that had bought me years, including the time I spent with Augustus and Isaac has finally run it's course.

I wake up fully a few hours later, the sound of various medical machines filling my ears. Dad isn't around, must be going to get some of the crap coffee they have here. Mom is sitting in a chair pulled right up to the edge of the bed. Her arms of folded on the mattress beside me, and her head is leaning on them, facing towards me so I can see that she's asleep.

I am relieved to find that I am in a private room instead of the ICU. When I look up again my dad is standing in the doorway looking at me as though I am the most wonderful thing in the world.

'You're awake,' he says in a half whisper, half sob. I manage to nod, although it hurts. His eyes flit to my mother, apparently deep in sleep this time.

'Don't wake her up,' I slur through the haze of the pain medication they must have pumping through my system.

He doesn't argue, but instead moves to sit by the other side of the bed and holds my hand.

'I love you kid,' he says, looking me in the eyes. He must have been terrified to get that call at work today. I know he must feel every day when he leaves that he may never see me alive again, but today was one of the few times it seemed a real possibility.

'I love you too dad,' I say, smiling slightly up at him. I can feel the lure of the drugs fighting to pull me back under and I go gladly, feeling my dad squeeze my hand again as I do.

I fully wake up at about midday. My mother is no longer asleep but then she and dad are no longer here either. I press the call nurse button. I want to find out what's going on and even though the nurse will not know the answer they will be able to tell someone who can.

I smile slightly when a male nurse walks into the room. I've always preferred male nurses, no not because I think they are hot or whatever. They just seem to be a rarity and that is after all what I am myself. It seems fitting.

'Hazel,' he says smiling, 'My name is Alex. How are you feeling?'

'Better I guess, where are my parents?'

'They had to talk to one of your doctors,' he says his kind smile faltering only slightly, 'are you thirsty?'

I grin at him, 'Are you offering me ice chips?'

He laughs.

'I'll grab you some.'

Hallelujah for good nurses.

He only takes approximately 2 minutes and chats to me while we wait for my parents, scooping me extra covert spoonful's of ice chips as he tells me what I've missed. Not much is the answer.

My parents return half an hour later and they tell me that they found some slight tumour growth in my lungs. The phalanxifor had finally started to fail, but it still slowing the growth just less effectively. The pain in my chest had been my lungs trying to hard to breath and my heart struggling with the lack of oxygen, so I will be getting a higher dosage of oxygen and will be walking less. Basically I will spend very little time walking from here on out so will be getting a wheel chair.

I listen to them numb, hearing my dad trying not to cry and mom straining to withhold her emotion so that she doesn't upset me more. Her voice cracks a little when she tells me that the mostly like scenario is that my heart will give out in about six months but she manages to cover it. I thought it would be much worse than this but even so I'd hoped I was wrong.

'Hazel, we will continue to fight this,' My mom says, 'There are so many options out there …'

I cut her off with a shake of my head.

'Mom, no'

'Hazel,' My dad does start crying now.

'I know you want me to try the options,' I say quietly, 'but I don't want to be a pincushion again.' Another sob. 'I don't want to be another Anna.'

Peter Van houtons words have haunted me since he first said them to me. 'They increased the misery of her days without increasing the number of them.'

'I want to enjoy the days I have left to enjoy without all the extra symtoms from the treatment options.' I said, and although they did try several times to convince me they eventually allowed me this wish, and I loved them for it.

* * *

**Sorry, this is not destined to be an entirely happy story. It's going to alternate between Isaac and Hazel's POV so I'm going to follow their roller-coasters :D**

**Thanks for the follows favourites and reviews. The Chapters should get longer from this point onwards.**


End file.
